Melon

            This grape is also known as Melon de Bourgogne, due to its origins in Burgundy. According to the Loire Valley Wine Bureau, it was eradicated there as early as the 16^th century as growers found success with other varieties (good move). The Dutch planted it as a distilling grape around the Atlantic trading port of Nantes, and it was one of the few varieties to survive the winter of 1708-9, the coldest in Europe in the past 500 years. It now produces the region’s signature wine, Muscadet, to the extent that the grape itself often goes by that name.

            This bottle from Sauvion, one of the area’s major producers, is typical. The wine’s predominant characteristic is brininess, befitting its seaside origins, and it is dry, somewhat high in acid and a bit prickly as well, adding to the overall impression of freshness. Keeping the wine on its lees (sur lie) over the winter, brings out more fruit, usually described as apple, pear and citrus.

            Food pairing: Hugh Johnson’s Pocket Wine Book recommends mussels, and that’s what we drank it with: mussels steamed over onions, shallots, garlic, tomatoes and parsley. Quite satisfactory. Another classic recommendation is oysters.

Forastera

            A specialty of the island of Ischia near Naples. Its name is said to mean “foreigner” in local dialect, and this may be appropriate, as some sources say it’s originally from the Canary Islands.

            Casa d’Ambra buys the grapes from local growers and vinifies them in stainless steel. The wine is dry and light in flavor, vaguely citrusy and supposedly with hints of apricot and almond, although you’d have to taste hard to discern them.

            This bottle was a good accompaniment to our Easter-dinner salad of arugula and fennel with green olives and toasted almonds. The recipe was from the “A16 – Food and Wine” cookbook, which recommends a pairing with Biancolella, Forastera’s frequent companion in Ischia Bianco wine. (The cookbook, from the San Francisco-based southern Italian restaurant, provides good details on many regional varietal wines and in general gives wine equal billing with the cuisine.) 

Merlot Noir

            Merlot Noir, the queen of Bordeaux, has the feminine characteristics of softness, roundness and opulence to complement the sterner qualities of King Cabernet Sauvignon. (And in the tradition of European royalty interbreeding, they are in fact half-siblings, each having Cabernet Franc as a parent.) It is reportedly the most widely planted grape in France and has been adopted almost wherever wine is made, thanks to its ability to produce large quantities of juicy, enjoyable quaff.

            This has engendered a certain lack of respect for the varietal wine among serious oenophiles, most famously expressed in the “I’m not drinking any fucking Merlot” line from the film “Sideways.” So, as I begin to upgrade the classic varieties in my tasting collection, I have replaced a lower-shelf California product with one from an area that does get some respect: Pomerol. The uncontested best wine of the appellation, Chateau Petrus, usually contains 5 percent Cabernet Franc but is occasionally made with 100 percent Merlot Noir. One instance is the 2010 vintage, which is currently available en primeur for as little as $2,499 a bottle.

            Someday I may get a taste of that, but until then I’ll settle for my bottle of Fleur de Gay, the luxury cuvee of Petrus neighbor Chateau La Croix de Gay, at a mere 3 percent of the price. Although more than a decade old, the wine was remarkably fresh and charming. The flavors were intense without being jammy or overpowering, and the family resemblance to Cabernet Sauvignon was apparent, as were the differences. The tannins of this oak-raised wine played only a modest supporting role to the mouth-filling fruit.

            Food pairing: We followed Hugh Johnson’s recommendation in his 2012 Pocket Wine Book and prepared an unctuous oxtail stew.

Diamond

            Diamond, or Moore’s Diamond, goes back a long way in American viticultural history. Thomas Pinney’s “A History of Wine in America” calls it one of the first secondary hybrids, in which two hybrids are crossed or one is crossed with a native grape. Jacob Moore, a commercial nurseryman in Brighton, N.Y., created the variety in 1870 by breeding the native Concord grape with Iona, which has vinifera genes from its grandparent Catawba.

            Diamond is still widely used for wine across the Northeast, and perhaps nowhere farther northeast than Candia Vineyards outside Manchester, N.H., where grower and winemaker Bob Dabrowski specializes in cold-hardy hybrids. (“We do not use foreign grapes!” his website proclaims, though he does bottle Chardonnay, Riesling and Cabernet Sauvignon.)

            A chat and vineyard tour, though, made clear that the hybrids are truly where Bob’s heart is. He was also nice enough to dip into his basement bank vault, featured on his corks and some of his labels, for this bottle of technically sold-out Diamond from his private stock.

            The Concord heritage comes through strongly. It’s grapey and plain, with sweetness well balanced with acids. I’m pretty much a vinifera snob, but I had no trouble finishing my half of the bottle.

            To pair with this American tradition, I made a chicken pot pie, tweaking it by cooking off a couple of ounces of sherry once the veggies were sautéed. Candia suggests spicy Asian food, always a good choice with this style of wine.

Cynthiana

           A wine dear to the few who celebrate America’s native grapes, this was an early and highly successful attempt to create a good-tasting variety that could resist the New World’s climate and pests. As recounted in Todd Kliman’s “The Wild Vine” and elsewhere, Dr. Daniel Norton created the variety in the early1820s at his farm near Richmond. As he tried to cross the V. labrusca grape Bland with Pinot Meunier, the Bland was accidentally fertilized by wild V. aestivalis pollen. The offspring, which became known as Norton’s Virginia Seedling, produced a full-flavored wine with native character but without labrusca’s disagreeable foxiness.

            The grape quickly won commercial favor in the East and later in the Midwest, where Missouri’s growing conditions proved especially welcoming. Famously, a bottle of Missouri Norton was honored as among the world’s best wines at Vienna’s Universal Exposition in 1873.

            Along the way, Cynthiana became recognized as a separate variety. Many believed it to be a mutation of Norton with distinctly different flavor and ripening characteristics. Whatever the case, DNA analysis has shown that today’s Norton and Cynthiana are one and the same, and the latter name now predominates in reference books (if not in Virginia).

            This particular bottle comes from St. James Winery, one of many smaller U.S. wineries listed on the Winemakers Direct site, which is searchable by variety. Another notable example is the Chrysalis Vineyards Estate Bottled Norton, grown near Middleburg, Va.

            Cynthiana/Norton is a wine you needn’t be ashamed of serving to your European friends – preferably at a cookout where the main course is grilled beef. It has good fruit and grip, and somehow does taste American.